


Not for Time's throwing

by fiercynn



Category: Band of Brothers, History Boys (2006)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Crossover, M/M, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-08
Updated: 2009-07-08
Packaged: 2017-10-02 10:31:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiercynn/pseuds/fiercynn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Haguenau is cold and gray, bleak in a way that makes it no different from anywhere that Scripps has been in the past few months.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not for Time's throwing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kaydeefalls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaydeefalls/gifts).



> Crossover of The History Boys/Band of Brothers, originally posted [here](http://fiercynn.livejournal.com/43283.html). First quotation from Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est"; title and second quotation from Rupert Brooke's "Safety" in the _War Sonnets_.

Haguenau is cold and gray, bleak in a way that makes it no different from anywhere that Scripps has been in the past few months.

He's starting to lose track of all the places he's been, the distinctions between them, their significance. _If in some smothering dreams_, he thinks – fitting, not only for the horrors of war, but for their futility. Scripps may not know it first-hand in the same way that many soldiers do, but it's all still there, in the air around them. Even clerks in the army can feel the desperation of their circumstances.

He sends up a quick prayer as he checks in with Colonel Sink's regimental staff, but these days, he's finding more truth in poetry than in God, since at least poetry was created by men like those he sees all around him.

It may not matter. War is blasphemy, in his mind, and Scripps has been sinning for a long time.

*

"Boats," says Capt. Lewis Nixon, pronouncing the word carefully, "I need _boats_."

"How many, sir?" Scripps says, considering Nixon. He's been here three days, and he hasn't dealt with this man yet. There's not much special about him – dark-haired, scruffy, world-weary, one among hundreds that Scripps has met. And yet –

"Four," says Nixon, setting his helmet on the table and scrubbing a hand through his hair. Then: "You're British?"

"Aunt in America," Scripps replies. "Moved when my parents died." Which makes him sound like a child orphan, of course, instead of a student whose scholarship money ran out and had no other place to get a job than with family. He has a job, now.

"I'm sorry," Nixon says, sympathetic. After a moment, he digs in his jacket and comes out with a flask. "Can I tempt you?" Scripps shakes his head, and Nixon shrugs automatically as if it's no surprise, even after confessions of personal tragedy.

Scripps wonders why. He finds himself intrigued by Nixon, almost despite himself; there's something about him that Scripps can't define, that feels familiar and foreign all at once. Scripps has no energy left for taking on the burdens of troubled men, but somehow his writer's mind has forgotten that. It's telling him that Nixon has a story, a story like one that he's heard before, and out here, now, that sparks Scripps' interest.

Scripps fetches the inventory. "It's alright, sir. When do you need them?"

"Say, twenty-two hundred hours? Thanks, Sergeant."

Nixon nods and surveys the battered room one more time before leaving. And there it is, a stronger clue, something in his gait and air that reminds Scripps of – of _Dakin_.

The thought is absurd as soon as he forms it. From first glance there's very little about Nixon that resembles Stuart Dakin – no blatant arrogance, not nearly enough relentless charm. He's not even handsome in the same way, withdrawn instead of brazen and confident.

It's not surprising that Scripps may be looking for sparks of connection, anything that he recognizes and understands in the people out here. Still, he can't shake the feeling.

*

There are times when Scripps can't imagine recording any of this for later; when the cold, hard language of reports makes him lose all love for words, when living on the outskirts of this war makes him disgusted enough that the burden of writing, distancing himself any further, would be unbearable.

But other times, it is instead his refuge. If people can create something beautiful, anything out of these horrors, it may be disingenuous but at least it proves that humans are capable of something more. That there is some kind of glory in this, not in the battles or the victories but in the honor and trust that the men show each other, in their convictions or belief for their cause, whether or not the cause itself is as noble as they think.

Writing can't take him away from this, but it can bring out the hidden truths that might make all of this worthwhile, wrapping them with the familiar threads of poetry.

*

Scripps has always been good at seeking out information without asking real questions, only hinting and shifting conversations the way he wants them to go. Discreetly, he gathers facts about Lewis Nixon – brilliant intelligence officer, mostly likeable and friendly, alcoholic. Best friend of the battalion XO, Captain Winters. The last fact seems to be the most important, and most often repeated. He stores it all away, but it still doesn't find the right place to rest in his mind.

The next time he sees Nixon, the officer is waiting to see the colonel, drumming his fingers lightly on the back of a chair as Scripps comes in with a box. "Hey, it's our British guy," he says. "Sgt. Scripps, isn't it?"

Has Nixon been digging as well? "Yes, sir."

Nixon watches as Scripps puts the box on the table, opening it with his knife. "So. Oxford, huh? Not the usual flavor around here. What were you studying?"

Scripps doesn't bother asking an intelligence officer where he got his information. "I read history," he replies, a trace of irony in his voice that he knows Nixon will understand, because here they are, making history, with no time to look back. "You?"

"Me too, actually, though I left before I finished my degree."

"Where?"

"An American school, you probably haven't heard of it," Nixon says carelessly. Scripps knows his type, though – one thing that his time at Oxford has taught him is to recognize wealth even when it is covered with dust and grime and weariness. Nixon reeks of it. Scripps doesn't find it intimidating anymore, and somehow he can tell that it's a sore point for the other man, not only in the army but perhaps all his life.

Perhaps that's why he's reminded of Dakin. There is something similar in their characters, but the mundane provinciality that Dakin was born into made ego his mask and armor all in one, while Nixon's privilege took him the other way. Only their feigned carelessness in presenting their facades is the same.

Maybe that's a bigger connection than it seems: casting away the differences of what two men do, to meet instead at how they do it.

"So does that mean Harvard, Yale, or Princeton, sir?" he says pointedly.

Nixon gives a surprised laugh. "What would you do if I said Brown?" Scripps shrugs, sorting through packets of bandages. "No, you're right, Yale. Damned if it matters now, though."

The Colonel calls him in, then, and Scripps continues with his duties. He's not expecting Nixon to come out of the meeting fifteen minutes later with such a look of quiet fury on his face, all easiness gone.

He sits down in one of the chairs, lost in thought. After a moment, he turns to Scripps. "Tell me, Sergeant," says Nixon. "When do you think something becomes history? When does a decision become old enough to be seen for what it really is?"

Scripps is astonished by the question. "Honestly? I have no idea," he says. "But I do know that it's usually sooner than we usually think."

"Right," says Nixon darkly. "Maybe not soon enough."

Scripps doesn't ask. It is the Army, after all.

*

Scripps tried to write about Dakin and Irwin once. He's not exactly sure why, besides a sort of nostalgia for the stories of his youth (as if it were that long ago, but it _feels_ an age), and – well, a little bit of the jealousy that Dakin had accused him of at the time. Not for the sex, not even for the opportunity, but for living fully and in the moment the way that Dakin did as easily as breathing.

And maybe it felt the slightest bit like justice when Dakin was delayed, refuted by a twist of fate, because everything just wasn't supposed to be that simple.

He could never find the right way to tell the story, though. Apparently there were not enough permutations of words for tension, fascination, irreverence, obsession in the English, nor any good way to describe the kind of illogical, inevitable, obvious connection he'd witnessed so often.

He thinks he might have the same problem with describing the bonds between men forged in the face of the war, though for different reasons. It's a too-delicate balance: the men live through hell together and trust each other completely, but to survive, they also have to hold back enough to accept leaving their dead bodies behind.

There are those who fail. Usually they die early on, or don't rise in the ranks, because promotions require dispassionate leadership.

The one time he comes upon Nixon with Winters, surveying the German bank and conversing in low voices, Scripps thinks he may have found the exception. It's that carelessness in Nixon again, the casual flair that could be letting his guard down with his friend, even when relaying bad news – or it could be the greatest mask of all.

Scripps isn't sure. He's only a writer. He can come up with ideas upon ideas, but there are some things he can't answer.

*

_Assured in the dark tides of the world at rest,  
And heard our word, "Who is so safe as we?"  
We have found safety with all things undying,  
The winds, and morning, tears of men and mirth,  
The deep night, and birds singing, and clouds flying,  
And sleep, and freedom, and the autumnal earth. _

*

The last time he meets Nixon, he's delivering the report of the second operation across the river, looking much happier than the last time he was there. He gives Scripps a nod, but the Colonel doesn't bother taking them into the other room, so Scripps watches as he takes the report and flipping through it with a bit of a harrumph at the end. "Ah well," he says, looking back up at Nixon, "I guess it was too much to hope for the same success."

"Sir," agrees Nixon, deferential, but Scripps can see right through him. Dakin had the same casual disregard for authority, unless it was someone he actually liked. Though he supposes that was true for all of them, to some extent.

He's drawing too many connections now.

"Oh, Nixon," says Colonel Sink, "I thought you might do the honors of giving Captain – that is, Major Winters these? With my compliments, of course."

Nixon stares at him – in jealousy, Scripps wonders? – before taking the small box and looking at it wonderingly.

No, Scripps decides as he watches Nixon, that's certainly not envy; it's not even ordinary happiness for his friend. It is pride, and satisfaction, and reverence, and when he glances back up at the Colonel, it's _proprietary_ in a way that shouldn't make sense. But as usual, it's familiar to Scripps, though not in the way that he was expecting.

Maybe Scripps got the wrong half of the pair by seeing Dakin in him.

"Thank you, sir," says Nixon, "I'd be honored." He salutes, and Scripps thinks that maybe this is a new form of protection, even now when the war is drifting off into nothingness and danger is only frequent, not constant. But Nixon seems to want all that he can get.

Scripps is sure that Nixon's seen enough horrors to warrant that desire. Scripps hasn't, and he probably won't anytime soon – but if he had, then everything would reach that state where there are no words for them, and Scripps couldn't live like that. This is the retreat into the tongues of old, the remembered dreams, the recorded histories, truth and poetry all bound up together. With that, with these safe, distant words, Scripps can tell stories of war again, and again, and again.


End file.
